Hog hoist



L. A. KRAMER.

HOG HOIST.

APPLICATION FILED 06125, 1920.

Patented Sept. 5, 1922.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l.

L. A. KRAMER.

HOG HQIST. APPLICATION FILED 0CT= 25| I920- Patented spt. 5,1922.

2 SHEE'KS-SHEET 2.

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LOUIS A. KRAMER, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

HOG- HOIST.

Application filed October 25, .1920.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, LOUIS A. KRAMER, citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, Illinois,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in a Hog Hoist; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to hoisting apparatus for elevating hooks attached to any desired objects, of which commercial forms known as hog hoists are commonly used in abattoirs for raisinghogs from the floor of the killing room to a suitably elevated bleeding rail. In some of its general aspects, my invention aims to provide an appliance of this class which will require a minimum of attention, and which will efl ect the desired hoisting without any appreciable jarring, so that in the case of a hog hoist there will be no sudden strains to damage the shackled feet of the hogs.

Heretofore, it has been customary in hoists of this class to attach a chain to one of the hind feet of each hog and to attach this chain manually to a hog or the like carried by a movable member of the hoist. In doing so, the man who shackled the hog has to wait until the time when the next hook or other attaching portion on the hoist reaches a point where the chain can conveniently be attached, thereby consuming extra time which is particularly undesirable with the present cost and scarcity of labor. Furthermore, the slam or impact of the attaching portion of the hoist against the chain presented to it, and the subsequent slamming of the shackle against the elevated rail both impose severe strains on the shackled foot of the hog, thereby often damaging this foot and reducing the salability of the lat ter. Indeed, this portion of a hog is often so easily damaged that the jerky movement imparted to links of a conveyor cha n in intermeshing with sprockets over wh1ch such a chain is trained produces this deleterious effect, and with the chain type of hoists as heretofore employed this jerk has cooperated with the heretofore mentioned slamming actions in causing a damaging of many of the hogs. So also, many of the types of hog hoists as heretofore proposed require considerable head room above the top of the bleeding or transfer rail, either because the con- Serial No. 419,360.

struction demands long shaekling chains (which in themselves are also objectionable owing to their weight and the conse uent excess of labor required forhandlin'g t em) or because the arrangement of the hoist requlred operative portions of the same to be dlsposed at a considerable heightabove the socalled bleeding rail or sticking-bar. Moreover, with many of the hoists heretofore in use, care has to be exercised to keep the suspended hogs from swinging against portions of the machine which are apt to damage the same, thereby further increasing the amount of attendance for the safe operation of the machine.

My invention aims to overcome all of the above cited objections to older types of ma! chines and to provide a simple and easily operated machine which willrequire very little head room above the bleeding rail, which can be operated with quite short and light attaching members secured to the hogs, I

which will not require the attendant to wait until any particular. part of the maf chine reaches a given pointafter he has shackled the hog, which will afford a prace tically jerkless elevation of the hog and transfer of the latter to the bleeding rail, which will automatically'slide each elevated hog along the bleeding rail out of the way of the next one, and which-will automatically prevent the hogs from catching on any parts of the machine both during and immediately after the hoisting. F urthermore, my inven tion aims to provide a simple driving mechanism for such a machine, to arrange this driving mechanism so that the strains on the samecan be widely distributed, and to-provide simple means for preventing a distortion of the machine by undue strains due to the weight. of the hogs. Still further, as well as more detailed objects will. appear from the following specification andfrom the accompanying drawings, in which- Fig. 1 is a front elevation of-a hog hoist embodying my invention, showing the same as it appears in use.

Fig. 2 is a central and vertical cross section through the same, taken along the correspondingly numbered line in Fig. 1. ,Fig. 3 is an enlarged plan view of the same machine, and F ig. 4 is a vertical section corresponding in size to Fig. 3 and taken along the correspondingly numbered line of that figure.

Fig. 5 is an vertical section through the elevated bleeding rail and the adjacent rim portion of the machine, showing the position of these parts and of one of the hog shackles at the time when the hook on the shackle is transferred from the hoist to the bleeding rail.

Fig. 6 is a diagrammatic View showing certain of the principal underlying fea-- tures of my hoist.

In the embodiment of the drawings, my invention shows a hoist arranged for transferring hooks 1 (to each of which a hog 8 is shackled after the usual manner) to an elevated rail 2 which is supported by any suitable means, such as need not here be shown. Referring first to the diagrammatic view of Fig. 6, l accomplish my purposes by providing a hook-receiving guide 3 having a relatively narrow upper edge curved concentric with an axis A at about one-half the height of the rail 2 and having this curved edge 4 extending for some distance above the said axis. This axis is that of a rotating member comprising a hub 5 carrying radial arms 6, each of which arms during the lower portion of its rotation extends somewhat below and adjacent to the said edge 4, the guide having this edge being substantially in the same plane as the elevated rail 2. Each of the said arms also carries a finger 7 projecting from the arm rotationally forward of the latter and having its outer edge disposed radially inward of the edge 4:, so as to leave a space between this outer edge and the curved edge 4: of the guide for receiving the curved upper portion of one of the hooks.

With the hoist thus arranged, each hook is hooked over the edge i of the guide 3 at any convenient point, with the hog 8 resting on the ground in any convenient manner, while the hub 5 and the arms carried by the latter are continuously and slowly rotating about the axis A in a clockwise direction. As soon as the arm 6 behind the hook on the guide reaches this hook, the tip of the arm slides the hook along the curved edge 4:, while the linger 'Z keeps the hook duly engaged with said edge. Then as the arm approaches a horizontal position, the weight of the hook is gradually transferred to the tip portion of the arm and when the arm is moved above the horizontal. position, the weight of the hook (and therefore of the hog suspended from it) is transferred to the moving member as shown at 1 in Fig. 6. As the movement continues, the rotating member carries the hook slightly above the righthand end of the elevated rail 2, which rail is so disposed adjacent to the path of the rotating member that the opening of the hook will reach over the rail after the manner of Fig. 5. Consequently, when the adjacent arm rotates still further, the weight of the hook and hog is transferred to the elevated rail 2, after which the projecting tip portion of the arm slides the hook to the left along the rail 2 to permit this tip to clear the hook.

With the arrangement as indicated, the operator merely places each hook upon the upper edge of the hook-receiving guide 2, after which the rotating member automatically picks up the hooks and transfers them to the elevated rail, where each hog slides the preceding one out of the way. However, with an open construction like that shown in Fig. 6, the hogs would be apt to swing on the hooks transversely of the face of the guide 3, so that they might catch on the arms or other parts of the mechanism, thereby interfering witthe operation and possi bly damaging the hogs. To avoid this, I desirably provide a guard substantially concealing ll except the projecting tips of the arms and cooperating with the front of the guide 3 in maintaining the suspended hogs forwardly of the apparatus asshown in Fig. 1. I also desirably provide av simple and effective supporting and'driving mechanism for the hoist after the manner shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4.

In these latter figures, the supporting frame 9 carries bearings for a shaft 10 carrying an annular gear 11 to which the arms (5 are bolted, and these arms jointly support a disk 8 forming the front of the rotating member. llhis disk is somewhat smaller in radius than the extension of the arms 6, so that its outer edge takes the place of the fingers 7 of Fig. 6. Consequently, this outer edge forms a continuous guard for maintaining the hooks engaged with the curved upper edge 4% of the hook-receiving guide 3 while the hook is being slid along this edge. During this slidin the weight of the hook is gradually transferred from the edge. 4 to the arm 6 which is pushing the hook, and by the time the hoolr reaches the position shown at the extreme right hand of Fig. 1, the weight of the hook and of the hog sus pended from it is entirely transferred to the adjacent arm. its the movement continues, the hook slides radially inward of the rotating member and its weight is transferred by gravity to the outer edge of this member before the latter reaches the top of its path. Then the hook is carried over the right hand end of the elevated rail 2 and is left on this rail while the adjacent arm slides the hook along the latter and then continues its downward path ready to engage another one of the hooks.

By sloping the free end of the elevated rail 2 slightly upwards as shown in Fig. 1, ll can cause gravity to cooperate in the sliding of the hooks along this rail, and by locating the rail close to the extreme top of the guard disk 8 and approximately tangential of the latter, I can cause the transfer of the hook to be effected without any appreciable jarring. Consequently, my hoist can operate without any sudden strains on the hooks and therefore without in any way damaging the legs of the hog to which the hooks are shackled.

To drive the rotating member, I am here showing a drive shaft 12 driven by a belt 13 on a pulley 14, this shaft being connected through suitable reducing gears with the gear 11 which is fast upon the. rotating member, thus providing a simple and strong drive for my hoist without depending on the relatively small shaft to transmit the driving thrust. However, while I have illus trated and described my invention in a highly desirable embodiment, I do not wish to be limited to details of construction and arrangement thus disclosed, nor to its use in connection with hogs. Obviously, various modifications might be made without departing from the spirit of my invention or from the appended claims, and the appliance of my invention would also operate equally well regardless of the nature of the objects attached to the hooks.

I claim as my invention:

1. For use with a hook attached to a hog, a hoisting member rotating in a substantially vertical plane, an elevated rail in front of the hoisting member and extending beyond the edge thereof, and a guide below the elevated rail and extending substantially concentric with the axis of the rotating hoisting member; the rotating hoisting member having a peripheral portion fast thereon and adapted to engage the said hook while the latter is hooked on the guide and to lift the hook off the guide and over the tip of the elevated rail.

2. A hog hoist as per claim 1, in which the hoisting memberhas a guide portion disposed for holding the hook on the guide until the hook is lifted off the latter.

3. A hog hoist as per claim 1, in which the guide extends above the axis of the hoisting member so as to cause gravity to cooperate with the said peripheral portion in transferring the hook from the guide to the hoisting member.

4. A hog hoist for lifting hooks to an elevated rail, comprising a rotating member having a radial thrust arm fast thereon and having a supporting portion radially inward and rotationally forward of the said arm, and a hook-receiving guide adjacent to the bottom of the path of the said arm and extending above the axis of the rotating member and disposed for holding a hook thereon close to the said supporting portion while the hook is being slid along the latter rail to a point substantially above the axis of the rotating member, the upper portion of the path of the said arm being adjacent to the elevated rail.

5. A hog hoisting for lifting hooks to an elevated rail, comprising a rotating member having fast thereon a substantially radial arm equipped inwardly of its outer end with a ledge extending transversely of the arm and rotationally forward with respect to the arm, a hook-receiving guide having its upper edge concentric with the rotating member and spaced from the axis of the latter by a distance intermediate the distance of the said arm tip and ledge from the axis of the rotating member and extending above the said axis; the elevated rail being adjacent to the upper portion of the path of the said edge.

6. A hog hoist as per claim 1, in which the rotating member includes a guard fast thereon for preventing the hog from swinging in one dlrection transversely of the path of its hoisting movement both during the raising of the hog and after the hook has been transferred to the moving member.

7 For use with an elevated rail and with a hook attached to a hog, a hook receiving guide having a concaved upper edge; and a a rotating member including a disk concentric with and adjacent to the said edge, and adjacent at its top to the elevated rail, and thrust elements fast thereon and projecting substantially radially from the edge of the disk and disposed for sliding a hook along y the said edge, the disk forming a guard for preventing a movement of, the hog in one direction transverse of the disk during the hoisting. v

8. For use with an elevated rail and with a hook attached to a hog, a hook receiving guide having a concaved upper edge; and a rotating member including a disk concentric with and adjacent to the said edge and adjacent at its top to the elevated rail, thrust members fast thereon and projecting substantially radially from the edge of the disk and disposed for sliding a hook along the said edge, a gear fastened to, the thrust members, and driving means intermeshed with the gear.

9. A hog hoist, for lifting hooks to an elevated rail, comprising a hook-receiving guide having a concaved upper edge; a rotating member mounted on an axis concentric with the said edge and inoluding'arms radial of the said axis and extending downportion of their path, and means for limiting the sliding of hooks radially inward of the said arms; the elevated rail being disposed adjacent to and substantially tangential of the upper portion of the path of the said limiting means.

Signed at Chicago, Illinois, October 20,

LOUIS A. KRAMER. 

